Christmas Candy Ornaments

These Christmas Candy Ornaments are a surprisingly easy diy craft idea. Perfect for hanging on your Christmas tree or giving as gifts!

For an easy holiday project that’s fun for young and old alike, make these beautiful ornaments from cut rock candy. The festive designs inside the slices of these classic hard candies create beautiful, edible art.

Metal cookie cutters, tart pans, and mini cake pans are used to melt the candies. Children will love arranging (and re-arranging) the candies into perfect colour combinations, but an adult will need to remove the hot pans from the oven. Holes can be made in the ornaments while the candy is still warm, or rings of candy can be hung with a ribbon.

As the size of your moulds will vary, so will the number of candies required for each ornament. Plan on an average of 12 candies per ornament, but buy a little extra; some of the cut rock candies in the bag may be broken or unsuitable (too thin or too thick) and you will not want to run out!

With time the ornaments may get a little sticky. To avoid this, many cake supply stores carry “Confectioner’s Glaze”, edible shellac that’s used commercially on many different types of candy. Brush it on, allow it to dry, and you may be able to carefully save your masterpieces – enclosed in plastic and stored in a cool, dry location – for next year!

Christmas Candy Ornaments

Sort through your candy and remove pieces that are too thin or thick. Try to keep the thickness of the pieces roughly equal.

Heat oven to 300 F.

Lightly grease the inside of each cookie cutter or mini pan. These will be your moulds.

Place moulds on parchment covered baking sheets.

Place the candies (flat side down) inside the moulds. For rings or wreaths, only place the candies around the outer edge. For solid ornaments, fill the pans. Leave as little empty space as possible.

Place 1 baking sheet in the oven at a time. Begin checking after 5 minutes. Remove from oven when the candies are melted together and smooth on the top.

Set the sheet on a cooling rack and allow the ornaments to cool for 2 minutes. Carefully slide the parchment with the warm ornaments onto the rack. If you plan to put holes in the candy ornaments, poke a toothpick in each one, wherever you want the hole. Push the toothpick through the parchment a little and rotate gently to enlarge the hole. If the candy is still too warm the hole will fill back up; wait for a minute and try again.

Once the hole remains open, remove the toothpick and let the ornaments cool completely before handling.

I was wondering the same thing– I think I will try some spray shellac this year and see how it works (I don’t care to keep them edible– just want to keep them from getting sticky and attracting pet hair and tree needles…).

These are beautiful. It didn’t work well when we tried it, though. Do you have any tips for keeping the candy from running out from under the edge of the cookie cutter and, more importantly, getting the ornament OUT of the cookie cutter once it is melted?

I didn’t have a problem with mine running out under the edge, but I used new cutters so they were level with the bottom of the pan. The trick to getting the ornament out, aside from using parchment paper and greasing the cutters well is to carefully stretch out the cutters once the candy has cooled completely. They should then pop out.

I tried this cute idea, but they didn’t turn vibrant colors. instead they just melted together and had a whiteish color to them. also used a round cookie cutter to make the wreath but it just melted and covered up the center as well. any ideas what I did wrong?